Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

Committee Chair

Anna Falkner

Committee Member

Bryna Bobick

Committee Member

Alison Happel-Parkins

Committee Member

Crystal Cook

Abstract

Contemporary art education fails to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population in K–12 schools. Although there is an increased understanding and awareness that culture must become essential to the art education of students, there is a gap in research on how art educators individually and collectively create culturally sustaining curricula and how it is implemented into the classroom and received by students. This holistic multiple-case study addresses the lack of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) in the curricula used by art educators across the United States by examining how five elementary art educators designed opportunities to center student culture and voice through instructional content, strategies, and materials. Participants demonstrated a range of sociocultural understanding and pedagogical alignment as they implemented CSP, but their efforts were hindered by the habitus of art education. Findings suggest that to sustain the cultures of their students, elementary art educators dismantle the master narrative, strengthen students’ sociocultural knowledge, build critically oriented art teacher communities, and practice critical reflexivity.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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